With the United States playing a waiting role in the youngWorld War II, radio networks, picture services, wire services,and several of the larger daily newspapers operationalized plansto report the war to their listeners and readers.

Wireless transmission facilities encircled the globe. Newsbureaus became formal, and centrally located offices were staffedto collect and disseminate the latest war news. In 1940 and 1941the major services of our country screened personnel to locatethe best equipped men and women to fill important foreign posts.

In 1940 The New York Herald Tribune was secondonly to The New York Times in scope of its world newscoverage. Now defunct, at the time it was one of the world'sgreat conservative newspapers.* (footnote)(1)

Ralph Waldo Barnes

In Ralph Waldo Barnes, the Herald Tribune had atrained and experienced reporter. During the comparativelypeaceful years before the war, Barnes had assignments in Moscow,Berlin, London, and Paris. From Berlin he began the final andmost hectic period of his life as a fast-moving reporter. Hecovered political developments in Bucharest, Budapest, Bulgaris,Syria, Turkey, and Palestine. He covered the Italian campaign inEgypt, the Italian invasion of Greece, the British war in thedesert, and the British air and sea battles throughout theMediterranean. He accompanied British fliers on bombing andstrafing missions. Many of his Mediterranean stories weredatelined from Royal Navy ships during air and torpedo attacks byAxis' forces.

Barnes characteristically employed vivid coverage tactics.From Berlin in 1940 he wrote a series of unvarnished dispatcheswhich finally resulted in his expulsion on June 21 of thatyear. The expulsion order from Dr. Goebbels denounced a Barnes'dispatch as "false, hateful, and sensational." Thatparticular dispatch had predicted eventual war between Germanyand Russia. It was written and filed just one year and two daysbefore the actual conflict began.

Barnes had been thoroughly schooled in Russian methods andconcepts of thought while attached to the Moscow office of the HeraldTribune Bureau. He witnessed the planning and implementationof Russia's first five-year plan-a scheme intended to promoteeconomic growth.

After reporting on the Iron Curtain of his day, he moved intothe field with the British Expeditionary Forces in France. Whileon this assignment, Ralph Waldo Barnes became the first Americannewspaperman killed in action. He lost his life flying a missionaboard a British bomber which crashed near Danilovgrad,Montenegro Provence in Yugoslavia. He was 41 at the time. TheBritish airplane which carried him to his death was heavy withbombs. RAF observers informed his Bureau that the aircraft hadreceived a direct hit in mid-air.

The British War Office paid official tribute to Ralph WaldoBarnes. It expressed appreciation of his wholehearted interest inthe Royal Navy and the RAF as reflected by his keenness after thenews.

Barnes, a native of Salem, Ore., was a 1922 graduate ofWillamette University. He majored in economics and history. Hethen went on to receive his Master of Arts degree from HarvardUniversity in 1924.

The son of Edward Talbot and Mabel Baker Barnes, Ralph wasborn on June 14, 1899. His wife was the former EstherParounagian, one of his classmates at Willamette University. Shereturned to the United States with their two children, Joan andSuzanne, on June 9, 1940. At the time of her husband's death,Mrs. Barnes and the two children were staying with Barnes'parents in Oregon.

Barnes' newspaper career started with the now defunct BrooklynEagle and the old Evening World. When he left forFrance in 1926, he landed a job on the Paris Herald, nowthe European edition of the Herald Tribune. During histhree years there as a reporter he covered his first notablestory-the feat of Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim theEnglish Channel (August 6, 1926). Barnes was in a tugboatfollowing the swimmer. When due to rough seas the boat was unableto land passengers, he started ashore in a life boat. When itcapsized, he was forced to swim ashore. Once there he ran twomiles down Dover beach to a telephone in order to get the storyto his London Bureau for relay to New York. His experience wasnearly as trying as that of the star of his story.

Among his outstanding pre-war assignments were the 1933 faminein the Ukraine, the 1934 treason trials in Moscow, theChamberlain mission to Berchestgaden in September 1938, and theMunich settlement later that same month.

Barnes died on November 18, 1940. Two days later his rivaloutlet, The New York Times, acknowledged the loss,". . . to the newspaper which he served so devotedly, and tohis wife and children far away in Oregon, the newspapermen of theTimes wish to offer their sympathy and sorrow." Theeditorial added, "None of them (war correspondents) facedrisks more willingly or more often than Ralph Waldo Barnes of theHerald Tribune."